9 posts from February 2008

Two of my favorite bloggers, Phil Gerbyshak and Steve Roesler have been talking about how to discover what job candidates are passionate about.

Phil suggests asking the candidate what she is passionate about, to see how excited she gets. Phil's idea is that you want to hire someone who can actually get excited about something.

Steve agrees that "simply finding out if someone can 'get passionate' about a topic is telling." He adds the step of asking the candidate, "How would you see that kind of excitement carrying over into your work."

Here's a third way to use a candidate's passion to discover a bit more about what makes her tick.

On National Public Radio Monday I happened to catch an interview with Charles Handy. Handy writes about organizations and organizational behavior. He told of a client of his. That client describes his organization as a "Bonsai Organization."

My opinion: annual performance reviews are hammers looking for nails to pound, and hurting employee engagement, productivity and health in the process. If you have any say in the matter, please throw out your performance review process.

Here's why I believe that, and some alternatives you might want to try.

[Updated March 2, 2008 with notes from Time Magazine's March 10th edition. Updates are marked with "*"]

Two blog postings last week got me thinking about hiring decisions. Eric Brown asserted that we ought to "...hire the best person you can regardless of the number of years of experience..." On the same day, Growing Business Link carried a brief piece extolling the virtues of the generalist.

So the question is, should you hire for very specific experience, or should you hire a generalist who has proven her ability to lead and to learn?

People don't bring their hearts and souls to a business that exists solely to make money for its owners. According to research by Amy Wrzesniewski, as reported in 12: The Elements of Great Managing (Wagner and Harter, Gallup Press, 2006), people want to work for an organization with a higher purpose - a mission that means something to them. And those same people want to understand how what they do individually contributes to the larger organizational mission. Fail to provide that mission, or fail to provide a connection from each employee to the mission, and you will fail to build a great company.

Let's assume you own a house cleaning company in a growing community. You have 20 employees serving 100 customers. You want to grow "organically" - that is, without acquiring other companies. What are your options?

I think about growth options in terms of customers and offerings (the package of goods and services you provide). Put these into a 2x2 matrix (see diagram at the end of the post) and you find four options for growth. Let's look at each, roughly in order of ascending difficulty.